Max Dunbar Is My New Best Friend...

...because of a single line in an article of his in 3AM Magazine called The Great Underground Myth: Why Self Publishing Doesn’t Work.

"Jane Smith is a lonely Cassandra in a sea of frothing bullshit."

I have to admire his perception. The rest of the article isn't too bad.

Self-Publishing Sales Statistics Clarified

When I appeared on The Write Lines last week I mentioned that the average self-published book sells between forty and two hundred copies, depending on which set of figures you consult. Compared to mainstream publishing, where sales of three thousand copies for commercial fiction are considered by some to be disappointing, these figures are terribly low and the reaction from the other studio guests (a literary agent and three successful mainstream-published writers) was obvious: if you listen to the recording you can clearly hear them gasp.

After the broadcast I caught up with the reaction on Twitter, and found that a few writers were discussing the figures I quoted and reaching some rather unsound conclusions. While I'm not going to quote anyone here (it’s just not appropriate to single anyone out), I do think it’s important that I respond to their points. But first, a very quick primer on how sales figures are usually gathered in the book trade.

Nielsen Bookscan collects the sales figures of various online and physical retailers, then collates those figures and reports them to the book trade (it’s Nielsen which produces the best-seller charts we're all so envious of). However, as relatively few copies of self-published books are sold through bookshops, and quite a few self-published titles don’t even have the ISBNs which are essential for books to be tracked by Nielsen, the majority of self-published sales aren't included in Nielsen’s sales reports: therefore, if you rely on Nielsen to provide sales information about self-published books, you’re likely to be way out of whack with the real picture.

The Tweeters seemed to assume that I was relying on Nielsen, and that therefore my figures had to be way off.

They would have had a very valid point if I had relied on Nielsen’s reports for my statistics, but I used a far more generous source for the figures I quoted on air: the publishers themselves (there’s an obvious difficulty here: my figures came from companies which style themselves as self-publishing service providers, which many consider to be vanity presses: but for the purposes of this discussion I’ll ignore that issue, which is a little off-topic here. I shall return to it at another time, have no fear).

As most publishing service providers of this type offer only print-on-demand services, copies of the books that they publish are only ever printed in direct response to an order; a copy printed is a copy sold, no matter who buys it. So long as a book is printed and sent out from their premises they consider it a sale—when these companies report sales what they’re really reporting is the number of copies printed. You can see that there is not going to be a hidden stash of sales which fail to get included in the sales statistics: if anything, these companies are likely to over-report, rather than under-report, their sales.

As the sales figures I quoted came directly from POD-based self-publishing service providers, not only do those figures include all copies sold in bookshops or by Amazon, etc.; they also include all copies subsequently returned by bookshops to their authors (because with self-publishing the author is the publisher, and so they have to credit the bookseller’s account for those returned books even if they’re no longer in a sellable condition); they also include as sales every single copy that the authors bought and then sent out, for free, to reviewers, or gave away to family and friends; and every single copy which all those hopeful authors ordered, only to have them left mouldering away in their garages when they found they couldn't sell them—of which there are far too many.

Which means that it’s impossible for the sales figures I mentioned to be under-reported: unlike Nielsen's figures, they are going to be higher than the sales which really count in an author's career: the sales made to interested readers who considered the books potentially good enough to pay their hard-earned money for.

Special Congratulations To RJ Frith!

RJ Frith has won the War of the Words novel-writing competition with The Nemesis List. The competition was organised by publisher Tor UK and Sci Fi Now magazine, and attracted a high number and standard of entries.

My warmest congratulations to RJ Frith for this significant win. It's richly deserved, and I hope it will be the first of many. I look forward to buying The Nemesis List as soon as it's published: and I cannot stress enough how very pleased I am about this!

If Self Publishing Really Is The Future....

During last week's outrage over Harlequin Horizons, one comment really caught my attention and remained with me for days. It appeared in the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blog site but came in part from an earlier blog post. I reproduce it now with permission from its author, the brilliant Stacia Kane.


When self-publishing becomes the only option, only the rich will be able to publish. When publishers can make more money taking cash from aspiring writers than by selling books to the public, writers and readers both suffer. Writers who can’t afford to publish will be lost, or we’ll have to go back to the 18th century model and whore ourselves out to rich “patrons” who might agree to pay for our publishing—not pay us, but pay to produce the books themselves.

Imagine a world where the only books on the shelves are those written by people with enough money to pay to have them published. Very little quality control, no attention paid to whether or not the book is actually worthwhile. How much fun will reading be then?

From my blog:

We’d have books written exclusively by those who could afford it. Much like in the 18th century, when so many books were diaries of some peeress’s trip through Europe with titles like, “My Gleanings.” FUN. I know I can’t wait to read books written exclusively by the wealthy, with no viewpoints other than their own. I’m sick of hearing what baby boomers think already; I can assure you I don’t want to read more of their “Gee, the sixties were sooo great!” back-patting. I know I can’t wait for a world where books written by those from other cultures have no chance to be translated into English and released here, when we become even more ignorant of the lives of those in the world outside because there’s no way to get their books in front of English-speaking audiences. Oh, and of course, given that self-published books tend to be much more expensive, thanks to POD technology, I can’t wait for a world when reading and books are even less available to the poor. When they don’t have the same opportunities thanks to their inability to get hold of books.

Oh, what’s that you say? Oh, right. The internet will provide all of that. Of course. Because I know when I want something to read I’d much rather spend hours and hours slogging around online looking for something decent than just go to a bookstore. I know people who can’t afford books totally have the money for laptops and ereaders and the internet. So in seeking to democratize literature, what you are actually doing is STEALING IT from those less fortunate than you.

We’d also have a lot more unreadable books. I’m sorry, but it’s true. For every excellent work of self-published fiction–and they are out there, make no mistake–and for every one that’s not bad, just not terribly polished or professional or interesting, there are dozens of horrible ones. Really.

Let’s not forget that the way most people learn proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling isn’t through school. I mean, we do learn those things at school, but we develop those skills by reading. So you tell me, how literate will we be as a society when there are no professionally written books? When there are no people to judge if a work is even readable or not before it gets published? When anything goes? Would you like to go back to the middle ages, when words were just spelled however they sounded? Because I wouldn’t.

If you'd like to thank Stacia for this piece, buy her books.

The Write Lines

Broadcaster and writer Sue Cook has a short series about writing and getting published running on Sunday evenings on BBC Radio Oxford. It's called The Write Lines: last week's episode is available to listen to again, and its next episode will run live tomorrow evening, from 9 to 10pm GMT.

Tomorrow night the discussion will focus on how to find an agent and get your work into print. Guests include literary agent David Godwin; literary agent and founder of the London Writers' Club Jacqueline Burns, and writers Katie Fforde, Caroline Smailes, Elizabeth Chadwick, Robyn Scott, and Miriam Wakerly. Writer Ben Johncock (who blogs for The Bookseller) will be tweeting live from the studio; and some woman called Jane Smith will be there too, butting into the conversation from time to time and generally making a nuisance of herself.

Even if you live outside the range of the BBC's Oxford transmitters you should be able to listen along on the internet from the links I've given above. If you'd like to participate and you have a Twitter account, please Tweet your questions to @theWriteLines before and during the programme, and we'll do our best to answer as many as we can. Meanwhile, you can prepare for the show by reading up on the participants either by following the above links to their websites, or by following them on Twitter: all our user-names are below. I'm looking forward to hearing from you: and please forgive me if I mumble or giggle uncontrollably, I'm not used to radio and Sue Cook provides free wine--it could be a dangerous combination.

@theWriteLines
@SueCookcom
@MiriamWakerly
@Caroline_S
@Chadwickauthor
@robynscott
@KatieFforde
@writersclub

@hprw

Harlequin Horizons: An Update

Harlequin’s venture into “self-publishing” (I use the inverted commas because although that’s what they’re calling it it’s not self-publishing, it’s vanity publishing) has gathered a huge amount of criticism since I blogged about it earlier this week.

Jackie Kessler has written a very good overview of the situation here (my thanks to Janet Reid for directing me towards Jackie's thoughtful piece).

The Romance Writers of America has stated that as Harlequin is now providing vanity publishing services, Harlequin will no longer be eligible for RWA-provided conference resources (I can't provide a link to the statement, as I'm not a member of the RWA). Harlequin's response appears in full on agent Kristin Nelson's blog and includes this assurance:

"...we are changing the name of the self-publishing company from Harlequin Horizons to a designation that will not refer to Harlequin in any way. We will initiate this process immediately. We hope this allays the fears many of you have communicated to us."

It's something, I suppose: but renaming the imprint doesn't stop it being a vanity imprint, so most of the problems with it still stand.

The Science Fiction Writers of America has condemned Harlequin's new imprint (its statement also appears on the Writer Beware blog):

"The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. (SFWA) finds it extremely disappointing that Harlequin has chosen to launch an imprint whose sole purpose appears to be the enrichment of the corporate coffers at the expense of aspiring writers."

The Mystery Writers of America has issued a statement which includes the following pointer:

"Offering these services violates long-standing MWA rules for inclusion on our Approved Publishers List."

Literary agent Rachelle Gardner sees raw submissions every day, and understands how bad many of them are: she expresses her concerns about the implications of such schemes here; literary agent Ashley Grayson voices more concerns in this blog post, and makes this rather lovely comment:

"The offer is reprehensible: For between $600 and $1,600 you can pretend to be a published author. You won’t be, really published, because no commercial publisher liked your book well enough to bring it to market. They will just pretend to offer it for sale if you pay the costs."

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware has asked why people are getting so riled up about this particular vanity-publishing scheme when other similar schemes have barely raised a ripple.

Finally, a big gold star goes to writer Stacia Kane, who seems to have spent the whole week explaining why Harlequin Horizons is such a bad idea. I've lined up one of her many comments to appear as a blog post here in a couple of days: it's a treat. She's been absolutely inspiring, and I applaud her.


Edited to add some more linky goodness:

John Scalzi: Writers’ Organizations to Harlequin: If You’re Not Going to Act Like a Real Publisher, We’re Not Going to Treat You Like One

Making Light: RWA Walks The Walk

The Examiner: Harlequin Horizons to change name to appease its critics

Dawn Metcalf: What's New on the Horizon?

E-Reads: Harlequin, "Surprised and Dismayed" by RWA Action, Defends Decision But Moves to Change Program Name

Harlequin Horizons: Looking To The Future, Or Exploiting The Naive?

The news that Harlequin has teamed up with Author Solutions (owner of Author House, and several other pay-to-publish services) to create a new "self publishing" imprint called Harlequin Horizons is perhaps not surprising. A few weeks ago, Thomas Nelson transformed its existing West Bow Press imprint into a similar "self publishing" scheme alongside Author Solutions; earlier this year HarperCollins formed an alliance with Blurb, Accent Press began its own pay-to-play erotica imprint, respected UK-based military history publisher Osprey took a similar route with Author Solutions; and for some time now US literary agency Objective Entertainment has been referring the writers it rejects direct to Author House with a letter which suggests to those writers that such publication could be their route to mainstream success. While Author House used to offer a commission of $100 on all successful referrals I have seen no evidence that this is part of the deal here: but while it's probable that the publishers taking part in these schemes will make a reasonable amount of money from the books which are sold, without that referral fee it's difficult to tell what's in it for Objective Entertainment.

With publishers in the grip of a financial squeeze, we are likely to see more and more turning towards such publication schemes in an attempt to transform their slush-piles from time-drain into a lucrative income-stream: the problem with the way it's being done here is the implication that this is a route for the writers involved to find real publishing success. And despite Author Solutions' attempts to position itself as a self publishing service provider and not a vanity press, it still charges writers for publication: in some cases several thousand pounds, which is a significant sum considering that the average Author House book sells just fifty-four copies (which for the authors who go ahead with Harlequin Horizon equates to a cost to the author of $11.00 per copy sold—a dismal result which becomes even more chilling when you consider that figure is based on their cheapest package of $599, and their prices go much higher than that).

There is a way for publishers to make real money from their slush piles without steering aspiring writers towards vanity publishing, and with relatively little upfront expense of financial risks to the publishers concerned.

It would entail a new imprint which offered print on demand printing only, standard template typesetting and jacket design, and basic levels of editing available only at a cost. Sales and promotion would be down to the author; all the publisher would have to do is download the text to the printers system and assign an ISBN—at no cost to the writer. Writers being what they are, they would almost certainly buy enough copies of their own books to move each title into profit under such a scheme, as the proliferation of vanity presses which work to exactly this model has proved.

The more astute among you will now, of course, all be screaming at me that this brave new system that I've proposed is nothing more than reverse-end vanity publishing: a scheme where no up-front costs are charged, under which writers fund their own publication by buying copies of their own books to resell (think PublishAmerica). You're right, of course. Which is why any publisher seriously considering creating an imprint like this would have to commit to two conditions, which it would have to be stringent about imposing.

1. It would have to make clear at every opportunity that such publication would be unlikely to lead to mainstream publishing success, or to result in any significant financial reward for the writers concerned, and to provide accurate and honest information about the realities of self- and vanity-publication and the differences between them and mainstream publication;
2. It would have to take steps to ensure that it only published books which were unlikely to do well if published by the more usual mainstream routes. Because, with all due respect to the writers who I would expect to see targeted by such a scheme, it would be a shame to see a good book appear on a list like this, as the lack of publishing support would make it highly unlikely to see it fulfil its true potential. It would be possible for this filtering to be carried out without employing teams of slush-readers: all that would be required is a big-enough stack of form rejections from reputable agents and publishers.

There are all sorts of bells and whistles which a canny publisher could add to this model in order to add value for the writers involved, and increase the publishers' financial return: online courses in writing and promotion, an online forum to encourage reciprocal sales efforts between writers; conferences where publishing professionals speak to give writers a chance to expand their knowledge and increase their expertise. To make it even more valuable, editorial assessments and critiques could be written by any willing writers which the publisher already had signed up, which would provide those writers with some welcome extra income too (which the publisher could take a commission from, in order to cover the administrative costs of running such a scheme). All these possibilities would result in better books, more sales, and an improvement in income for the publishers involved.

While I don’t think that this business model is perfect, it has to be better than the one which Harlequin Horizons works to; and there would be two further benefits would should not be overlooked.

The first is that slush piles would significantly reduce in size, as books with little mainstream potential were published through the new imprints.

The second is that by offering this more-ethical route into paid-for publication to the writers without real mainstream potential, the number of writers available to be exploited and swindled by the vanity presses would dwindle away. The publishing business could kill off this blight by beating vanity publishers at their own game. Which has to be a good thing.



I have banged on about a scheme like this before: you can read my earlier post here. And if you'd like to read more about Harlequin Horizons there's a shocked-and-stunned discussion of it over at AbsoluteWrite, Kevin A Gray of Author Solutions steps into the fray at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books; Dear Author voices an opinion; and literary agent Kristin Nelson adds her views to the discussion.

Learn Writing With Uncle Jim: A Celebration

Six years ago today, a discussion called Learn Writing With Uncle Jim began on the Absolute Write message board. The Uncle Jim in question is SF writer James D Macdonald, who is perhaps better known as Yog, of Yog's Law fame. Learn Writing With Uncle Jim has now expanded into a second volume, and has grown into one of the most useful discussions about writing that there is.

If you write fiction then you will find things in it which will help you. If you write non-fiction, then you probably will too. If you're not sure it's for you, have a look at this partial index of the discussion and I'll bet that you'll find something there which interests you; if you'd like to read all of Mr Macdonald's posts without comments from other readers you can find them here; and if, confronted with all that linky goodness you find the discussion's length and detail a little daunting, just dip into it. Start reading. You'll soon see what I mean.

And while you're at Absolute Write, have a little look around: you might find a celebration or two going on. And if you would like to thank Mr Macdonald for his help and encouragement, then there's a something you can do which is guaranteed to please him: buy his books.

I Am Working On A Website!

I know, I know. As if I don't have enough trouble maintaining this blog without tearing my hair out, I now have a website.

There's not much in it right now, and it looks rather, well, dull. But over the next couple of weeks I'll be stuffing it chock-full of all sorts of publishing-related goodness, and will do my best to glue some sparkly stuff onto it so that it looks a lot nicer.

If anyone would like to volunteer their technical expertise to help me make it look just a little more interesting I'd be thrilled. It would stop me bunging up the internet with Copydex and glitter, too.